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Tuesday, 7 March 2017

The Inevitable Outcome of the Establishment of Palestine.

At the Israel Institute for
Strategic Studies we pride ourselves at going where others dare not tread.

One such example is the
Israeli-Palestinian problem.

Collective thought stops at a
two-state road block. Strategic thinking dare not go beyond this point. No
alternative route to peace can be contemplated. It is, for too many, the only
route allowed. All other maps are discarded with little or no examination. The
only end goal is a Palestinian state and they try to convince us that this is
the only ultimate aim that should be considered.

At IISS we raise the
uncomfortable question that is rarely, if ever, heard. What Palestine are they
creating?

Basically, they don’t care to
think about the inevitable and horrible entity they tirelessly try to concoct.

Allow me to predict the reality
of a Palestine that will emerge from their efforts. And my prediction is firmly
based on facts on the ground that any thinking diplomat should be able to see
for themselves.

Firstly, when they talk about the
negotiating arm of Palestine they only refer to the Authority led by the
undemocratic, corrupt and elderly leadership of Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas claims he
represents the Palestinian people.

In their parliamentary elections
of 1996, parties not affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Organisation were
banned from registering their candidates and Hamas refused to participate. When
the inevitable results were announced Hamas usurped power in the Gaza Strip in
a bloody civil war which left Arabs dead on both sides of the political divide.

What is swept under the carpet is
the fact that in the 2006 parliamentary elections Hamas won an overwhelming
victory taking 74 of the 132 seats. The Palestinian Authority have been fearful
of holding parliamentary elections ever since.

Hamas continues to enhance its
grip on power in the Gaza Strip by eliminating much of the opposition by fair
means or foul. Its repressive fist leave
Gazans hostage to the whims of an ideological-based terror regime that devotes
its full attention and most of its finances to developing an increasingly
sophisticated terrorist infrastructure. Despite an internationally legitimate
blockage on Gaza both by Israel and by Egypt, Hamas has stockpiled thousands of
missiles aimed at Israel.

The anti-Semitic Hamas founding
charter openly calls for the murder of Jews.
And they have made steady headway in the territories controlled by its
Fatah-led rival, the Palestinian Authority

If not for the tireless efforts
of Israel’s counter-terror intelligence and security forces Hamas would be the
power of influence in key West Bank cities governed by the Palestinian
Authority including Bethlehem, Hebron, Tulkarm and even in east Jerusalem.

In April 2015, Hamas students
scored a convincing victory in the student council election winning 26 seats as
opposed to Fatah’s 19. For those unfamiliar with the geography Bir Zeit is
located just ten kilometres north of Ramallah, the central headquarters of
Fatah and the seat of the Palestinian Authority administration. Bir Zeit has
been considered as the most liberal of all Palestinian universities and is,
therefore, a good indicator of the mood of the Palestinian street in the West
Bank.

How about the future political
face of Palestine? In Gaza, Hamas just
elected their replacement to Ismael Haniyeh. If you thought that the old face
of Hamas was bad, the new face is even worse.
Haniyeh was a disciple of the Muslim Brotherhood. His replacement, Yahya
Sinwar, is an arch-terrorist linked to the extremist Islamic Salafist
movement.

Sinwar was released from a
twenty-year prison sentence on gross terrorism charges as part of a prisoner
exchange for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped from
Israel and dragged into Gaza by a Hamas terror cell and kept in captivity for
five years. Sinwar is not only responsible for the deaths of many Israelis. He
is also reported to have murdered Palestinians with his own hands on alleged
charges of “spying” or “collaboration” though it is more likely that they
opposed his ruthless Hamas oppression.

The Hamas monster is such a
distasteful reality that they need to airbrush it out of their incessant
campaign. Better, they think, to ignore it. Raising the likely outcome of Hamas
usurping power by the ballot or by the bullet in the West Bank in a new
Palestine is too awful a thought. Better to leave it to the Israelis to deal
with after the Jewish state has been forced to withdraw to impossibly
vulnerable lines.

As for the Palestinian Authority,
a Post-Abbas future looks equally grim.

I am involved in a campaign to
have Jibril Rajoub removed from his position as the Palestinian delegate at
FIFA, the governing body of soccer. We have irrefutable evidence of Rajoub
using football, and other sports, to propagate and glorify Palestinian
terrorism including naming sports events after Palestinian terrorists who have
murdered Israeli civilians, including women and children.

Yet, shockingly, this man is one
of the leading candidates to replace Mahmoud Abbas.

The other leading candidate is
Marwan Barghouti currently serving five consecutive life sentences in an Israeli jail for his murderous terror outrages against Israeli civilians. In a 2015 Palestinian poll he was the only
Fatah candidate pegged to defeat Hamas in any Palestinian election.

One would have thought the record
of these candidates would disqualify them from serving as president of any
country but, in a society brainwashed and indoctrinated in hatred and violence
and the inadmissibility of a Jewish state, this is the result.

The inevitability of yet another
civil war seems certain. These rival forces are divided by a deep political
chasm. They may be united in their hatred of the Jewish state which in both
their lexicons must be obliterated, by stages if necessary, but when push comes
to shove they hate and distrust each other as they vie for overall power.

This is the Palestine a naïve and
cynical world is determined to impose on Israel.

The two-state solution demands an
Israeli withdrawal from territories and a vague Palestinian promise to desist
from violence.

The inadvisability of
establishing such a regime is not predicated on issues of settlements or
borders. It is entirely based on the inevitable spectre of a violent politically
nonviable Palestine with a long term agenda to continue its struggle to destroy
whatever remains of Israel.

Therefore it is essential for the
Israeli government and all self-respecting academic and strategic think tanks
to ask the diplomatic community and the impactful global institutions what they
are doing to reform the Palestinian leadership into united and peace-loving
pragmatists.

So far we have seen little
progress in any such reformation. Nor are we likely to see any positive change
going forward.

If no assurance can be given then
Israel cannot be expected to make dangerous concessions based on nothing more
than the empty echo of peace.

Barry Shaw is the Senior Associate for Public Diplomacy at
the Israel Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the author of the new book ‘1917.
From Palestine to the Land of Israel.’